An electroluminescence device (EL device) is a self-light emitting display device having such merits as a wide viewing angle and excellent contrast as well as a quick response time.
EL devices are classified into an inorganic EL device and an organic EL device in accordance with a material used for a light emitting layer. The organic EL device has merits of improved luminance, driving voltage, response speed, and multi-colorfying property compared to an inorganic EL device.
An organic EL device is generally composed of an anode on a substrate, a hole transport layer on the anode, and a light emitting layer, an electron transport layer (ETL), and a cathode sequentially positioned thereon. The hole transport layer, light emitting layer, and electron transport layer (ETL) are organic films that are composed of organic compounds.
The organic EL device having the above structure is operated as follows.
When a voltage is applied to a space between the anode and the cathode, the holes are injected from the anode to the light emitting layer through the hole transport layer. Meanwhile, when the electrons are injected from the cathode into the light emitting layer through the electron transport layer (ETL), carriers are recombined in the region of the light emitting layer to thereby produce excitons. The state of the excitons is changed from an exited state to a base state, and the change in the state of the excitons makes the molecules of the light emitting layer emit light to thereby form an image.
Materials for forming a light emitting layer are divided into fluorescent materials using singlet excitons and phosphorescent materials using triplet excitons according to the light emitting mechanism. Phosphorescent materials generally include organic/inorganic compound structures including transition metal atoms. The transition metal atoms change triplet excitons, which used to be impossible to transition, into excitons that are possible to transition, causing them to emit phosphorescent light. Since the phosphorescent materials can use triplet excitons having a generation probability of 75%, higher luminous efficiency can be achieved than with fluorescent materials using singlet excitons having a generation probability of 25%.
Among light emitting materials using the triplet excitons are phosphorescent materials including iridium and platinum compounds (Sergey Lamansky et al. Inorg. Chem., 40,1704-1711, 2001, and Sergey Lamansky et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 123, 4304-4312, 2001). For blue light emitting materials, Ir compounds based on (4,6-F2ppy)2Irpic or a fluorinated ppy ligand structure have been developed (Vladimir V. Grushin et al., Chem. Commun., 1494-1495, 2001). The (4,6-F2ppy)2Irpic, however, has shortcomings that it emits light in a sky blue region and its large shoulder peaks increase a y value in color purity coordinates. Researchers are studying red and green light emitting materials, but there still remains great demand to develop highly efficient phosphorescent materials having a long lifespan.